For those of you who haven’t seen the hints and little graphical images splattered all over my entries recently: I decided to take part in the CSS Reboot Fall 2005.
I’ve actually been designing with CSS and standards in mind for about a year now, so I didn’t use the reboot as an excuse to clean up any CSS/XHTML coding. I did, however, use it as an excuse to rip a large chunk of the back-end apart and add a few fixes to security bugs that I’d picked up, as well as new comment moderation for users who’ve not had previously approved comments AND a new archive system stolen from Review-You.
I actually came up with four designs before finally settling on this one. I had a couple of three-column layouts planned at first but they just didn’t fit in right with what I wanted, and are harder to make accessible. So, this one it is. Strong colours and subtle patterns with something I’ve never done before: detail! I made little images to highlight things like comments and updates, the kind of detail I usually tend to skip over.
For those of you have never visited Jemjabella before, this is what it’s looked like for the past month or so:
Anyway, enough rambling about the new layout. What do you think.. is this one better than the last, or should I have never changed? If you like my new design you can vote for it (preferably a 5, but you know, I’m easy *wink*) on this page – look for “Jemmie”.
01 Nov at 8:08 am
I am so jealous of this new layout. You work the whole bright colours thing so well. I definitely think you ought to keep it. :)
01 Nov at 12:24 pm
better! it looks more professional now, but it still has a personal touch. So it’s not like it’s boring now or anything. I love it :)
01 Nov at 12:56 pm
The new layout looks very neat :) and I also love the small details ;) that’s something I also need more excercise in, I have to do it at work all the time, but I think it’s kinda hard to get ideas…
01 Nov at 1:47 pm
Ish purdy (and fluid, yay!!) – I like the circles on the bottom. I don’t know why I choose to mention those over everything else…I guess I just like circles. IE is being crackheaded, as usual – when you hover over links stuff…shifts. But to hell with that. The fact that they deleted my portable Firefox on my school profile makes me angry… (By the way, since I’m here, thanks for the screenshot – finally able to see them annoying little specks! Will fix at home..)
01 Nov at 1:47 pm
The new layout looks great Jem! I voted for you. :)
01 Nov at 2:46 pm
Looks very pro. On the first ‘entry’ though it looked fucked up – I think I was caching the old stylesheet. :|
01 Nov at 4:44 pm
It looks a LOT like review-you :P I like the layout a lot (especially the circly things at the bottom) but for a personal blog site thing, it almost seems TOO professional. However, as a layout in general, it’s awesome. Really nice and accessable and just put together super duperly :) as for the ‘being back’ thing – I think I’ve found a host, so that experimental blog thing might be toast pretty quick :)
01 Nov at 5:34 pm
This has got to be my favorite so far. I think I commented on it before, but I forget. Awesome job :]
01 Nov at 6:07 pm
Honestly, I liked the other one better. This one is too plain and the boxes on the right hand side look unfinished. Just thought I’d share my opinion! :D
01 Nov at 6:16 pm
Voted for you! :D I think I liked the last layout better, but this one still is good…very professional-looking. =)
01 Nov at 6:18 pm
I saw this layout and thought I’d accidently stumbled on Review-You again. o.o; But I think the details are very cool – I tend to skip over those as well, and the people that don’t must have lots of patience with designing, I suppose…
02 Nov at 1:07 am
Very lovely! Bold striking colours that captured my attention at first glance! :P And I especially love the little circles in the background.
02 Nov at 3:37 am
I do agree with you, Gwendoline, about the ‘boxes’ on the right, but I’m yet to come up with an effective way of adding detail to them without making them even more ugly, lol.
02 Nov at 10:07 am
I kinda like it… I feel like something is missing. The grey bubbles on the bottom of the screen are a bit dark – I would brighten them up so they are more noticeable. Personally, the bubbles are the only funky thing on this layout that make me feel your personality. I think it’s the red part. It’s plain. I slightly notice the red squares, but not really – those could use some brightening too, if you want them to be noticed. Otherwise, I do like it. Adding a bit of contrast to your details and doing something with the title text… maybe change the font or something. It’s plain. I don’t know what else to say. It’s professional, but plain.
02 Nov at 10:13 am
I really like it, it kinda shocked me when I first visited but now it has really rubbed off on me.
02 Nov at 11:34 am
I like it! I wasn’t too nuts on the old pastel one…but that’s because I wasn’t nuts on the colors. I’ve actually been (for the most part) designing to standards, but I used the reboot as an excuse to optimize code structure (like making the content load before the sidebars)…and trying out new things with php. My problem with designing my site is that I tend to use a lot of graphics. I’m pretty sure this comes from using lots of graphics in clients’ designs…or, maybe I’m just a bandwidth hog…dunno. Anyway, I gave you high marks on the reboot site. :)
02 Nov at 11:49 am
I really like the layout jem! good job!
02 Nov at 12:43 pm
I like the details in this layout (the circles, squares, gradients, little icons, etc.), but those yellow boxes on the left just stand out as rather odd to me. I don’t think they fit in at all with the rest of the layout simply because of their color. In keeping with the look you have going on now, I’d probably have made those yellow boxes the same red as the header and used white text instead of blue.
02 Nov at 4:57 pm
It’s quite lovely! I love the background – simple but sexy. Indeed, that sums up the entire layout; the muted colors and the bright look very good together. I like this better than the old one, in my opinion.
02 Nov at 6:28 pm
I like it, especially the details. I’m a sucker for details. ^^ And it does look a whole lot like Review-You. The gray-box-on-hover thing for the comments is also fun; I’ve seen it a lot more as of late but it’s not something that gets old but it’s not obnoxious, and things that change on hover are just too cool. xP The only doubt I have about this layout is that the style isn’t quite contiguous with that of your old designs. I dunno, it could just be evolution of taste, or something. It was just that the old layout looked a wee bit more like something YOU would have made. No worries, though. Overall I think this design is definitely a success.
03 Nov at 12:01 pm
I’m loving the new layout, especially the header. The grey and the red work really well together too. Very professional-looking!
03 Nov at 1:59 pm
I didn’t realize how nice this website is at first. Now that I look at it, it’s really great, and fluid :) Great job!
03 Nov at 6:12 pm
Great Job on the CSSReboot Design! :) I like the color selection.
05 Nov at 3:59 am
Thanks for stopping by at fadtastic. First time I’ve been to this site and it looks great. The menu looks fresh and the colours work. Good reboot.